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Crumb Catcher is an upcoming iPhone and iPad game by Beardo Games that's all about getting as many crumbs as you can to stick in a character's beard or other facial hair. Each level gives you a crumb goal to reach and a different character, and it gets harder to reach the goal as the levels progress.

Beardo Games is Miles Nielsen, an artist, and Chris Harback, a programmer. Founded in 2011, Beardo Games is all about bringing all their outlandishly cool, outrageously fun, and occasionally ridiculous video game ideas into reality.

Everyone knows that crumbs are an issue for any beard-sporter. Plus, anything with tiny pieces, sauces, or stickiness gets lodged in there and demands immediate grooming.

In Crumb Catcher, we turned this problem on its end: your goal is to get as many crumbs as possible to stick in your player's beard. To that end you'll be served a series of courses at the bottom of the screen. Act fast to choose up to three food items that will combine to form a super dish.

Drag that dish to your player's mouth to make crumbs that fall and (hopefully) stick in their beard. The better the food combo, the more crumbs you'll get! Or, if you chose poorly, you might get a dud item that makes almost no crumbs. Plus, each character has their likes that generate more crumbs, and their dislikes that they won't even eat, and might even have a beard that's small or hard to get stuff stuck in.

You only get so many courses per meal, and the end of each meal all the crumbs will be groomed out to fill the crumb meter. If you don't fill it to the level's minimum level, it's GAME OVER and you lose your beard!

You get combos by doing well in each course that multiply the amount of crumbs you get in the next course, and your combo will break if you pick wrong. Sticky and greasy stuff can be chosen to make crumbs stick better! Each character has a spoiler animal that will leap in and try to steal crumbs out of their beard. Just tap it to cool its heels and keep it away from your precious crumbs! Score well in a particular level? Eat three special food items in a row? Miss all your combos? You might even find a secret path!

There will be two modes to start: Arcade Mode, where you play through the game by completing levels in an attempt to reach the Beard Boss, and Story Mode, which tells the story of beards through the ages, from Cavemen to the present day. There may be more modes added later on, or even modes that you'll have to unlock be meeting certain requirements (like... SPOILERS: Reverse Mode!!).

We pulled out all the stops in creating bearded characters to play against. A Hillbilly, a Lumberjack, Abe Lincoln, Metal Mutton Chops... and much more!

Why yes! We both have a long and storied history of playing games, and one of the most satisfying things about games is finding all of the stuff the kindly developers added into the game. There will be a truckload of things to find in the game, from achievements to a food encyclopedia, to special food combos, to unlockable characters, paths, foods, modes, and art.

Yes, it's true. We've thought long and hard about rewards to come up with an exciting option for everyone. Miles is a well known ceramics artist who makes collectible limited edition mugs as part of Munktiki (http://www.munktiki.com) and as a special reward he's created a mug of the Papua New Guinea Beard character's mask. Folks who choose this reward will get to choose from several colors for the mug and will also get an in-game code to unlock the Papua New Guinea Beard character! Chris has already begun paradoxically creating the bootleg version of Crumb Catcher, also for iPhone/iPad, called Krumb Katcher. It's an old-school, pixel art game that's all about using your video game beard to catch strangely large food items to earn points.

Just look at all the great stuff being offered:

5 bucks gets you: A copy of the game plus an iPad/iPhone background image of the beard of your choice!

$20 Pledge: A copy of the game plus a high-quality PDF of a papercraft beard for you to cut out and wear! Or you can just cut it out and stand it in the corner. The perfect gift for the beard-challenged!

Grow your beard the easy way..... with papercraft!

$20 Pledge: Join the Beardo Club! Got a great natural beard or even a cleverly crafted fake one? We’ll feature your face in perpetuity on the front page of the Beardo Games Website. Plus a copy of the game!

Be a part of the Beardo Club on Beardogames.com

Pledge a tiny $25: GIANT BEARD BATTLE STAGE! A new challenger approaches! Pick this reward and you'll get the game plus a code to unlock the first Secret Character, the twin giant beard monsters! We've also posted an update that shows what these gigantic horrors look like in the game!

Get the code to unlock a Epic Giant Monster Beard Battle level!

Throw down $35 : A copy of the game plus a Metal Mutton Chops T-Shirt. Metal Mutton Chops is Miles' favorite character so he made a special t-shirt that includes MMC's character logo, inspired by Motorhead's mascot! Metal enough to be safely worn at any fist pumping, horn throwing concerts! Available in the only true t-shirt color, black!

50 bucks in quarters gets: A copy of the game plus a copy of the bootleg version of Crumb Catcher, Krumb Katcher, a fully playable iPhone/iPad game! Sure to be pulled from the shelf sooner or later, so get your copy now! Plus, Krumb Katcher will inexplicably be available in the App Store BEFORE the game it's ripping off!

Be one of the first to play that rare thrift store bootleg for iPhone/iPad, Krumb Katcher!

Pledge $100 for: A copy of the game and a limited edition Papua New Guinea tiki mug available in a bunch of different colors that YOU get to choose by Munktiki (http://www.munktiki.com). Limited to only 100 mugs! The mug will come with a code to unlock the exclusive Papua New Guinea Beard character below!

A limited edition Munktiki mug + a code to unlock the Papua New Guinea character

Pledge $500: Your face (sortof) in the game! Chris (the programmer) will transform your face into a poorly drawn character in the game! Plus he'll put a similarly poorly drawn image of your favorite foods (three regular plus one super food), a dietary specification, and a custom animal in the game too! We'll provide you with a code to access yourself in the game and to give out to your friends. It might look a little bit like you, but just to be safe don’t tell your friends until you see how it looks.You'll also get a one of a kind signed print of your portrait! Plus a copy of the game!

Your poorly-drawn self could be in the game!

Pledge $1,000: Your face in the Game! Miles (the artist) will transform your face into one of the characters in the game! Plus he'll put your favorite foods (three regular plus one super food), a dietary specification, and a custom animal in the game too! He’ll even provide some hair augmentation to the beard-or-mustache-challenged. We'll provide you with a code to access yourself in the game and to give out to your friends. You'll also get a one of a kind signed Giclee print of your portrait! Plus a copy of the game!

Best of all, every single backer will receive a copy of Crumb Catcher when it's released!

Well, we've heard about tons of cool and exciting projects through Kickstarter. Maybe I would have heard about them otherwise, but maybe not. We want to tell everyone we can about this amazing game we're making so that more people can try it. Also, the fact that we can use funds from the game to help us take time off from other projects and focus our efforts on Crumb Catcher doesn't hurt!

Okay, so we both have businesses to run (Miles is one half of Munktiki.com and Chris runs Secret Arts) so the funding from the Kickstarter will go towards helping us take time off from other work and focus on making Crumb Catcher.

We've got a lot of stuff planned for stretch goals, if we should way surpass our modest initial funding goal. We want to cram as much as we can into the game, from extra game modes to additional characters and food items.

The weirdest beards on Earth are in the Sideshow Character 5-Pack! If we reach our first stretch goal we'll add the the Bearded Lady, the Tattooed Strongman, the Dog-Faced Boy, the Half-Man Half-Woman, and the Sword Swallowing Ringmaster to the game! Holey Moley, we've drawn back the curtain on the sideshow to reveal images of the Bearded Lady and the Dog-Faced Boy!

If we get to this stretch goal, we'll add in an extra mode to the game: Survival Mode! Time's counting down! Choose your character and keep comboing your food items to increase your crumb meter and earn time bonuses, but beware of your character's spoiler animal who will try its best to fish as many crumbs out of your beard as possible! Lose all your crumbs or run out of time and it's all over!

Reaching this insane sum will add yet another new mode to the game, Versus Computer Mode! Choose your character and compete against the rest of the cast in a tournament to see who has the best beard!

Some of the most monumental beards ever seen were sported by Communists. We'll add the Communist Character 5-Pack that includes Fidel Castro, Marx/Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and Che Guevara if we reach this milestone funding amount.

Chris hears that some fighting games out there have local and wifi based Bluetooth versus modes. Reaching this goal will convince him to find out more and add Versus Local Player Mode! Choose your character and go up against your local friends to see who is the King of Beards! Combo well to dump a bunch of random foods into your opponent's courses! Use special items to throw it all back on their plate, and then some!

Risks and challenges

This is a relatively low risk project. The project has been specified in a tractable way, and the Kickstarter ensures other projects can be delayed to not interfere with development. Chris has experience fielding game apps to the app store and Miles has an extensive history of doing art to meet deadlines.

FAQ

Rewards

$5 reward

A copy of the game plus an iPad/iPhone background image of the beard of your choice!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$20 reward

1 backer

A copy of the game plus a high-quality PDF of a papercraft beard for you to cut out and wear! Or you can just cut it out and stand it in the corner. The perfect gift for the beard-challenged!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$20 reward

0 backers

Best Beards Club! Got a great natural beard or even a cleverly crafted fake one? We’ll feature your face in perpetuity on the front page of the Beardo Games Website. Plus a copy of the game!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$25 reward

1 backer

GIANT BEARD BATTLE STAGE! A new challenger approaches! Pick this reward and you'll get the game plus a code to unlock the first Secret Character, the twin giant beard monsters!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$35 reward

8 backers

A copy of the game plus a Metal Mutton Chops T-Shirt. Metal Mutton Chops is Miles's favorite character so he made a special t-shirt that includes MMC's character logo, inspired by Motorhead's mascot! Metal enough to be safely worn to all manner of concerts! Available in the only true t-shirt color, black!

Please note: Outside the US? There will be an additional cost for shipping for international backers. Please contact us at info@beardogames.com for details before selecting this reward.

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$50 reward

0 backers

A copy of the game plus a copy of the bootleg version of Crumb Catcher, Krumb Katcher, a fully playable iPhone/iPad game! Sure to be pulled from the shelf sooner or later, so get your copy now! Plus, Krumb Katcher will inexplicably be available in the App Store BEFORE the game it's ripping off!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$50 reward

0 backers
Limited (75 left of 75)

A copy of the game plus some papercraft bonuses and access to Beta testing! Be our tester and see what a game looks like before we sweep all the rough edges under the rug. You’ll get early access to the game before it’s available for sale in the App Store.

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$100 reward

31 backers
Limited (69 left of 100)

A copy of the game and a limited edition Papua New Guinea Beard tiki mug available in a bunch of different colors that YOU get to choose by Munktiki (http://www.munktiki.com). The mug will come with a code to unlock the exclusive Papua New Guinea Beard character!

Please note: Outside the US? There will be an additional cost for shipping for international backers. Please contact us at info@beardogames.com for details before selecting this reward.

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$500 reward

1 backer
Limited (4 left of 5)

Your face (sortof) in the game! Chris (the programmer) will transform your face into a poorly drawn character in the game! Plus he'll put a similarly poorly drawn image of your favorite foods (three regular plus one super food), a dietary specification, and a custom animal in the game too! We'll provide you with a code to access yourself in the game and to give out to your friends. It might look a little bit like you, but just to be safe don’t tell your friends until you see how it looks.You'll also get a one of a kind signed print of your portrait! Plus a copy of the game!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$1,000 reward

0 backers
Limited (5 left of 5)

Your face in the Game! Miles (the artist) will transform your face into one of the characters in the game! Plus he'll put your favorite foods (three regular plus one super food), a dietary specification, and a custom animal in the game too! He’ll even provide some hair augmentation to the beard-or-mustache-challenged. We'll provide you with a code to access yourself in the game and to give out to your friends. You'll also get a one of a kind signed print of your portrait! Plus a copy of the game!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

You selected

$9,999 reward

0 backers
Limited (1 left of 1)

We sell out and let you or your company brand one of the stages in the game. Ever wanted to know what it’s like to see a video game Lumberjack eat a video game version of your brand of fast food? Now’s your chance to find out! Plus a copy of the game!

Estimated delivery:Apr 2013

Funding period

Sep 21, 2012 - Oct 21, 2012
(30 days)

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